Chaucer and His Times

by Grace E. Hadow

And then the poet turns to the real subject of his poem. Wordsworth himself does not make hunting seem a tamer occupation.

Nor are Chaucer’s descriptions of fighting much more convincing. He tells us coldly that Troilus and Diomede met in battle:—

With blody strokes and with wordes grete,

and that Troilus often beat furiously upon the helmet of Diomede, but the stanza which follows this announcement puts the matter in a nutshell:—

And if I hadde y-taken for to wryte
The armes of this ilk worthy mane,
Than wolde I of his batailles endyte.
But for that I to wryte first began
Of his love, I have seyd as that I can.
His worthy dedes, who-so list hem here,
Reed Dares, he can telle hem alle y-fere.[144]

It is emotion, not action, which interests him most. In the Knightes Tale, Palamon and Arcite

—foynen[145] ech at other wonder longe,

but Chaucer has no desire to follow the duel to its end. He remarks that they hew at each other till they are ankle deep in blood and then leaves them, still fighting, while he turns to Theseus. There is more vigour in the description of the tournament at the end. Here the clash of arms does echo through the verse, and the rapid narrative conveys a vivid sense of the heat and clamour of battle:—

Ther stomblen stedes stronge, and doun goth all.
He rolleth under foot as dooth a bal.
He foyneth on his feet with his tronchoun,
And he him hurtleth with his hors adoun ...

Possibly the poet was recalling his own fighting days in France. Certainly there is nothing stiff or conventional about this. But nowhere else does he give so lengthy and detailed a description of action, and even here it has a dramatic value, apart from its intrinsic interest, in that it enhances the suspense. Further, Chaucer, as we know, had himself probably superintended the erection of such lists, and the ceremonial of the tournament may well have had a special interest for him. His use of similes in describing action is worthy of note. He does not, like Spenser, constantly break the narrative by introducing some beautiful picture drawn from classical mythology, thus carrying the thoughts of the reader away from the actual situation at the moment. His similes are few—in this connection—and are so chosen that they add to the vividness of the whole impression. Palamon and Arcite fight like wild boars